The first signs that Israel's attack on Hizbullah is losing momentum could give a fillip to the diplomacy now getting under way, but timing is crucial

A FORTNIGHT after Israel hit back at Hizbullah, in response to the Lebanese Islamist movement's capture of two Israeli soldiers, the bloodshed in Lebanon showed no sign of abating and diplomacy seemed to have little chance of stopping the fighting soon. As the death toll mounted steadily, nobody appeared to be winning, yet nobody had a clear plan to enforce a ceasefire acceptable to all sides. America's secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, toured the region, ending at a conference in Rome, where the cause of peace barely advanced. The Arabs, and many others, think America is simply giving Israel a bit longer to wipe out Hizbullah.

Israel says its pounding of launch sites and command centres in south and central Lebanon has destroyed a good third or so of the militia's rocketry. But the campaign has not, so far, reduced the rate of Hizbullah missile strikes. Israel says it has killed “some tens” of fighters—27, says Hizbullah—but none more senior than the commander in charge of a section of the Lebanon-Israel border.

Meanwhile, civilians were still taking the brunt of the misery. By some estimates, 800,000-odd Lebanese, in a population of 4m, have been displaced and some 400 killed. Israeli forces continued to bombard Hizbullah strongholds along the southern strip of Lebanon and in southern Beirut, where the country's Shia Muslims, Hizbullah's constituency, predominate. The coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon swelled with perhaps as many as 100,000 refugees, in scenes of devastation, panic and death. Israel's air force went on thumping bridges and roads in its effort to squelch Hizbullah, terrifying—and sometimes killing—civilians in the middle. Lebanon, in the words of its prime minister, Fouad Siniora, was being “cut to pieces”.

Israel suffered too, though its death toll has been about nine times smaller than Lebanon's. At least 2,300 missiles and rockets have rained down in the past fortnight. Haifa, Israel's third-biggest city, some 30km (19 miles) south of the border with Lebanon, has been showered with missiles. At least 18 Israeli civilians have been killed. It is the longest sustained assault on its territory that Israel has endured since its war of independence. On July 26th, nine Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon—Israel's biggest loss in a single day since this campaign began.

This week Israeli ground forces sought out Hizbullah bases in villages near the border. But it has been heavy going against an enemy with a well-built network, replete with bunkers, that hides men and weapons among civilians. Pushing Hizbullah back the 20km to the Litani river, one of Israel's original demands, may now cost too much in time and casualties. Unnamed Israeli officers have been quoted saying it could take another month to stop the rockets. Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah's leader, has meanwhile threatened that “if matters develop, we will choose the time when we will move beyond, beyond Haifa.” Israel believes Hizbullah has missiles that could reach Tel Aviv, though whether it can launch them is another question.

With all that, the overwhelming public support that the war has enjoyed in Israel so far could start to fade. Criticism of the army's planning and preparation is already emerging. Statements a week ago that it needed 10-14 days to “finish the job” now look optimistic. And while Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, needs a decisive victory to establish his security credentials with the public, it is far from clear what a sufficiently decisive one would look like. Above all, Israel wants to avoid leaving troops in south Lebanon for long, as happened when it went after the previous troublesome tenants, the Palestine Liberation Organisation, in 1978 and 1982.

Diplomatic moves might, therefore, help Israel find a face-saving way out as well as stopping the bloodshed. On her trip this week to the region, Ms Rice refused to push Israel into an unconditional ceasefire as many are demanding, but the pieces of a diplomatic solution may slowly begin to fall into place.

Seeking the minimum

Israel has dropped its demand that Lebanon's army alone do the job of keeping Hizbullah out of south Lebanon, accepting that an international force will be needed. It seems also to have conceded that Hizbullah cannot be disarmed straight away. There are signs that UNIFIL, the discredited UN monitoring force in south Lebanon, will be disbanded soon, to be replaced by a multinational contingent empowered to act rather than just watch. Israel will be encouraged, as part of a ceasefire deal, to give up the Shebaa Farms, a small disputed strip of land that Lebanon claims as its own and that the UN says belongs to Syria's Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Clearly, the thinking is that a handover of the Shebaa area and three prisoners in Israeli jails (two Lebanese, one an Israeli Lebanese) is the very least Hizbullah needs to give back the two captured soldiers, agree to a ceasefire and, hardest of all, accept eviction from its home territory.

But Ms Rice's meeting with Arab and European leaders in Rome left more questions than answers. Who would provide the thousands of troops needed to police southern Lebanon (both Britain and the Americans, for instance, feel they already have enough in Iraq)? How long would they stay? Would they be prepared to clash with Hizbullah? Would they feel safe from Israel, which killed four UN peacekeepers in their bunker this week? (An accident, said Israel; “apparently deliberate”, said the UN's secretary-general, Kofi Annan.)

What could make Hizbullah—and its large group of Shia Muslim supporters—accept the new restrictions? If it kept its arms, continued to be resupplied by Iran and Syria and could fire its longer-range rockets from new positions farther north, what guarantees of security would Israel get? Some see a chance to settle several disputes at once, by persuading Syria to stop supplying Hizbullah in return for a return of the Golan Heights and a peace deal with Israel. But with Israel in a bellicose mood, it is hard to see that succeeding either.

The most basic question is whether anything can happen fast enough. The first peacekeeping contingents would probably not arrive for a couple of months. Until a ceasefire is agreed, Israel could keep battering Lebanon. By doing so it would risk bolstering Hizbullah's popularity and making it harder for Lebanon's precarious factional government to impose anything on the Shias (see article).

That will affect the wider region too. Both Syria and Iran, Hizbullah's main backers, were relatively restrained in their remarks when the fighting started—a hint that Hizbullah's kidnapping foray really may have been its own initiative rather than, as some read it, an attempt by Iran to distract attention from its nuclear stand-off with the West or to provoke a bigger war. Mahmoud Komati, one of Mr Nasrallah's deputies, seemed to confirm that by saying this week that Hizbullah did not expect Israel's massive response.

But now, as the conflict has escalated and anger across the Arab world with Israel has grown, even the Egyptian and Saudi governments, which started off notably critical of Hizbullah's move, have had to backpedal to a more anti-Israel stance. This week's summit was held in Rome partly because none of America's Arab allies wanted Ms Rice on their soil.

The Palestinians are watching nervously too. With Lebanon in flames, the offensive that Israel launched two weeks previously against militants in Gaza, after they too captured a soldier, has vanished from the headlines. Well over 100 Palestinians, around half of them civilians, have died, and the rest of the strip's inhabitants are still without electricity or water most of the day. Israel has been bombing government buildings and institutions tied to Hamas, the party that runs the Palestinian Authority, and whose fighters are among those holding the soldier hostage. But as in Lebanon, the attack has neither freed the hostage nor stemmed the rain of the Palestinians' home-made Qassam rockets on Israel.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is keen to separate the Gaza and Lebanon issues. In reality, so is Hamas. For all the fiery rhetoric about being brothers in the struggle, it does not like Hizbullah stealing its (and the Palestinians') top spot as the symbol of Arab resistance, and the Sunnis of Hamas and Shias of Hizbullah are uneasy bedfellows. A solution for Gaza should suit Israel too: it would weaken the Hamas-Hizbullah-Iran-Syria alliance, and give the army a way out of what is turning into another quagmire.

A rumour of Palestinian unity

Mr Abbas, says a senior official close to him, has agreed with the main militant groups that they will halt their rocket attacks and let the soldier go, in return for an Israeli pullout from Gaza and a release of some Palestinian prisoners at a later date, with Egypt playing mediator and guarantor. Hamas and Fatah, Mr Abbas's party, would form a joint government—a proposal that was nearly signed but got shelved just after Israel's incursion began.

That could at least draw Gaza back from the brink and ease the people's suffering. But it would also widen a rift between Hamas's more moderate “inside” leadership and the “outside” one in Damascus, which controls Hamas's armed wing and could thus sabotage any deal. Besides, getting Israel to agree would require more help from the Americans—and they are a little busy right now.